Prosecutor's Office of BiH accelerates 'agreement' of heads of statistical institutions, Census Bureau session on Wednesday

The session of the Central Census Bureau, which was cancelled this week because statistical institutions failed to reach an agreement on disputed issues, i.e., the methodology for processing the results of the 2013 Census, could be held in the middle of next week, writes the BiH news agency Patria.

As announced by the Agency for Statistics of BiH, the solutions reached by the statistical institutions should be in line with the recommendations of the International Monitoring Mission (IMO) and EUROSTAT.

There is no agreement among the heads of the agency and institutes, although the IMO has maintained all its earlier positions, including that question 40 (place of work and education) cannot be used to determine the status of non-resident population. This very question is the stumbling block, and despite the IMO's recommendations, the RS is demanding that this question also be used to determine the status of non-resident population.

On the other hand, the Prosecutor's Office of BiH is actively working on the 2013 Census case and is investigating whether there is criminal liability of individuals in this project, which cost BiH around 50 million KM.

Thus, at the end of this week, on Thursday and Friday, persons in the capacity of witnesses closely related to the entire process were heard, and on Friday, statements were given by the heads of the entity statistical institutes of FBiH, Emir Kremić, and RS, Radmila Čičković. The director of the Agency for Statistics of BiH, Velimir Jukić, also received a summons.

As previously announced by the Prosecutor's Office of BiH, jeopardizing the 2013 Census process could cause great damage to BiH and all its citizens.

According to the Census Law, the results should be published by July 1, and there is a fear that even if the results are published, they will not be internationally verified. We remind you that European officials have also called for the publication of census results as soon as possible, as it is the basis for social and economic planning, and one of the first questions in the questionnaire that BiH must fill out after submitting its application for EU membership is the exact number of inhabitants.

Incidentally, data from the 1991 census is still used for BiH.